“Come on, Minho!” Taemin groaned, his camping backpack forcing him to lean backwards as he hefted it up. He leaned on the heels of his feet as he pointed to their door, “Let’s go already! We were supposed to leave a half hour ago!”

Minho chuckled, smiling as he got the last of the needed supplies within a large bag (Minho said he’d carry it because Taemin wouldn’t be able to even think about lifting the heavy weight), zipping it up.  He slung a backpack on him before taking said bag and another bag in the opposite hand and heaving them up, “I got it, I got it. Stop complaining, the wild isn’t going anywhere.”

  “You’re going so damn slow!” Taemin emphasized in a huff, bouncing to the door and opening it, “Let’s go!”

Minho smiled wider and nodded his head, following behind Taemin and locking the door before making it out of the apartment building.

Taemin babbled on about everything and anything as they walked. Minho indeed listened intently, nodding at the right times and even able to respond. He was an expert on Taemin and knew how to interact with him. He knew every basic detail—even some of the ‘unimportant’ things—about his Taemin and he could just shout to the world anything about the guy and he’d be right.

These two had been in a relationship since the beginning of high school. And it was about two years ago they graduated from the place, living together ever since. They both went to collage, but they were all online courses, and it made everything so much easier than having to actually lug yourself out of bed and walk to school in pajamas.

Taemin’s parents were a mystery left to be unknown. Taemin said he lived with them once, and with a brother, but apparently separated from them. Taemin never even wanted to look for his parents, but only his brother (Taemin didn’t tell Minho his name). Taemin didn’t know where he was and he wanted to live with him again. It stumped Minho on why only his brother, but he knew Taemin was reasonable and had to have a legitimate reason to feel this way.

Now Minho . . .

Minho never saw his parents—never knew his parents. Never knew if he had siblings.

He knew why. Of course he knew why.

It was the way his kind always treated their children. A tradition, one might say.

Minho was different from Taemin—and most likely different of all man kind; maybe even the only one of his species now.

No human DNA. No where.

He was far from human, but his exterior showed otherwise. He wasn’t a shape shifter, but his kind only had two exteriors: human and traditional.

Minho was something people believed to be in stories; believed to live in Hell.

And Minho knew he wasn’t born in Hell.

He was the complete opposite of Taemin in form, but their hearts beat just the same, and that’s all Minho thought about when it came to the two of them; to him and humans. It wouldn’t matter what he was as long as they knew what feelings were.

But Minho never told Taemin his identity, nor was he going to.

His life, his history, his true self had to be secure from any human mind; from any invasion. If he was let out, he was never coming back in.

Now, he doesn’t understand how his kind can take on the human form and only transform into their true self when they command to. There had to be a bit of human inside or else he’d be a straight up black monster.

That’s what he was: A monster.

But he wasn’t cold hearted, he wasn’t a killer at freewill, he wasn’t bloodthirsty (Minho didn’t know if that was normal or not, but the thought of drinking blood disgusted him), and he wasn’t a trickster to damn people into Hell. He lived like an average human, breathed like humans, ate and slept, loved like humans. Really, there were more comparisons than contrasts. It was just his form that was difference.

(And maybe his over-confident attitude.)

  “Hello? Hyung? Hello? Minho?”

Minho blinked, realizing he was staring at the ground below them instead of responding. He sheepishly smiled and snuck a kiss on Taemin’s cheek, “Sorry, blanking out again.”

Taemin nodded, turning to the walk ahead of them, “It’s okay. I was just saying—saying how nice it is that we can get . . . away.”

Minho stared at him through his peripherals and couldn’t help but to sigh at Taemin’s stuttering and his face deepening in his red color.

All humans felt this way.

All.

  “Right,” Minho confirmed, “A week into the wild because you were dying to ‘get away’. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

He could hear Taemin cough in surprise to his answer, the younger quickening his pace to get out of the city. Minho’s heart skipped a beat as he enjoyed Taemin’s embarrassment.

But it left him to wonder, what were they going to do for a whole week away from Namwon?

  “Minho, hurry up,” Taemin called back, power walking to the end of the streets that met with a dirt path.

Really, it was never long to reach the entrance to Namwon. As time went by, the city-like area wasn’t getting with the future times and started aging backwards. Instead of high buildings and so much technology, houses turned traditional and stores were made of wood. The only thing still modern was cars and a few streets.

Taemin and Minho liked it in Namwon rather than Seoul. It was always so crowded and so noisy while Namwon was so peaceful.

But there couldn’t be a reason Taemin wanted to ‘get away’ from here. There was nothing to get away from.

Minho smiled, thinking Taemin just really wanted one-on-one time without the possibility of neighbors listening to them through thin walls.

Then he blushed when the thought presented itself for the first time.

  “Minho!” Taemin turned, tapping his foot on the first ground outside the entrance, “Come on!”

Minho gripped the bags and jogged forward, meeting next to Taemin with a shameless smile as he walked beside him and into the trees.

Taemin talked on casually, but it made Minho think hard. Taemin usually never blabbers on so much and never was he so excited to go camping. What could possibly be on that boy’s mind?

  “Oh, by the way, Nichkhun says hi,” Taemin chirped as they were disappearing into the trees.

  “That’s not all he said,” Minho rolled his eyes.

Minho had heard Taemin on the phone with Nichkhun yesterday, and with his high definition ears, he could listen to the conversation; needless to say, Nichkhun was getting very suggestive about their trip.

  “How would you know?” Taemin blushed, hiding himself into his blond hair.

Minho looked at Taemin, nudging him with his elbow, “Nichkhun is Nichkhun. What other excuse is there?”

Taemin nudged him back and started stomping up the steepening hill, leading them farther from the city, “He said nothing.”

  “I don’t even know why I let you talk to my friends. They all think I’m going to do something to you and that gets you paranoid—hey, close your mouth, you’ll catch flies. I know it embarrasses you, stop it.”

Taemin grunted, Minho able to see his red face clearly behind his blond hair.

  “I like Nichkhun.”

  “I like your innocence.”

Taemin stopped, startled, “My what?”

Minho sighed in amusement, still walking and letting Taemin try catching up, “Nichkhun is ruining your innocent brain. I don’t like that.”

  “Innocent brain? Hyung, you’re kidding me, right?”

Minho turned and looked at Taemin with big eyes, “Are you saying you’ve been thinking about us—”

Taemin’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and started running up the hill making deep-voiced complaints, “I’m not listening! I’m not listening!”

Minho chuckled as he watched Taemin climb the slope, stumbling a few times, all the way to the top. He followed after, once getting to the top, Taemin was already making his way down and farther away from him.

Minho smiled as he watched Taemin try fleeing from their conversation. It put a stop to his heart and all he wanted to do was squeeze the life out of him until he begged for mercy.

He tried sliding down the hill slope as best as he could instead of walking, and it did him good. He caught up to Taemin in the matter of minutes, kissing him on the back of his neck before resigning next to him.

Taemin jumped and squeaked, thoroughly surprised with how fast he caught up, “H-How did you . . .?”

  “Easy,” he simply responded, kissing his forehead, “You’re slow. Come on, we aren’t even close enough to being a mile away from town. If you want to get a couple miles away by a couple hours, you better pick up your pace.”

Taemin blinked before huffing, agitation clear on his face as he pulled them arm and arm awkwardly (due to the bag in Minho’s hand), walking a bit faster towards the mountain they want to camp out at.

----Note~---

Evening. c:

This is the official first chapter of Escape to Redemption! /insert cheers here.

And because this chapter is very much just a background-type chapter, I'll be sure to upload the next chapter by tomorrow night so we have /something/ going on. c:

How was the introduction? Like? 

There's so much I'd love to tell you, but it's being left a secret for now or it'll give everything away. Bah, secrets . 

For anyone new to my stories, Hi, I'm FlaMinhoe! I don't ship 2Min (shocker?), but this doesn't mean I'm going to butcher a part of the fandom's OTP with this story. I put my heart and soul (and tons of procrastination) into everything I write.

The beginning of this story is just a tiny bit slow but picks up very soon! And for any confusions at any point, please point it out to me because I have a plan to make an extra story slot for behind the scenes of the story.

So, in summary, 2Min actually live together in this story, are college students; Minho is one year older than Taemin. Taemin isn't a whiny little boy like a lot of stories have: Taemin is a grown man and plenty mature in this. Minho's a creature but is surrounded by humans. Blah blah blah, it's really peaceful.

(I have no idea what Namwon looks like, but let's just leave it to our imaginations shall we? My Namwon is basically a traditional place with only few developments of technology.)

I should shut up before I say too much.

So thank you to every view, subscribe, and comment. Much appreciated. c:

Bye.

~FlaMinhoe

Tumblr for any comments/questions.